Russell (“Buster”) Attebery, Karuk Tribal Chairman:
“California is not just fire-adapted, it is fire dependent.”
Jack Cohen, U.S. Forest Service’s top expert on how fires burn homes:
"We have the ability to be compatible with fire. But we mostly choose not to be. ... Our expectations, desires, and perceptions are inconsistent with the natural reality.”
Frank Kanawha Lake, PhD, research ecologist for the US Forest Service, and Karuk tribal member:
“I’m trying to spread the idea that fire is medicine. If you see fire as medicine — as a good thing for the landscape and for your family health — you could consistently prescribe it at the right intensity. This means you’re managing a lot of diversity from materials that, from a tribal cultural perspective, provide your foods, medicines, and materials (e.g. basketry). Your landscape is then really linked to fire as your pharmacy, your supermarket, your hardware store, and for some sacred places, your church. We must learn to live with fire, see it as beneficial, and just not try to suppress it in the ways we think is in our construct of safety and security. It’s about learning to live with our environment and fire being a part of that.”
Elizabeth Azzuz, Yurok tribal member, traditional firelighter and cultural practitioner:
“We’ve been suppressing fire and really, what we’ve been doing is suppressing this critical piece of who we are as humans. Fire isn’t something apart from us. Fire is family.”
from CFMC (Cultural Fire Management Council)-Yurok website:
“Prescribing burns for fire management (is) like doctors prescribe medicine. Each individual fire is tailored and harnesses the specific landscape and weather. (Says) Amy Cardinal Christianson, an Indigenous fire expert and member, Metis Nation in Western Canada: ‘The best thing about the Indigenous approach to fire is it really takes a holistic look at the local environment and it’s really variable depending on the cultural values. That will impact how fires are managed and that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach.’”
Sierra Club:
“(W)e need to help homeowners make their homes far more fire-safe. (…) Homeowners also need assistance to create “defensible space” within 60 to 100 feet around their homes, (…) Clearing vegetation away from larger distances from homes offers no added benefit for home protection, research (International Journal of Wildland Fire, Vol. 23) shows.”
FIRE: FRIEND OR FOE?
(Reflections of well-known fire ecologists and Indigenous fire leaders and educators)
“The post-fire snag forest is some of the rarest and shortest lived habitat in our forest ecosystems. Studies have demonstrated that such snag forests — which include patches of native fire-following shrubs, downed logs, colorful wildflowers, and dense pockets of natural conifer and oak regeneration — are among one of the most biodiverse forest ecosystems. These short-lived forests exist only for a few years until the regeneration process is complete and new trees start taking over the space.”
George Wuerthner, PhD, ecologist and natural resources expert
George Wuerthner, PhD
ecologist and author of numerous books on public lands and natural resources:
“Rather than reduce a wildfire’s reach, thinning can sometimes actually increase a fires spread by putting more fine fuels like needles and cones on the ground and opening up the forest canopy, which in turn dries out these fuels and allows greater wind penetration.”
Rick Halsey, PhD
founder and executive director, The California Chaparral Institute:
“Prevent fires from the house out, rather than the wildland in. Ninety percent of wildfire home ignitions are caused by airborne embers from fires over 100 feet away. (…) In fact, deforestation is not only ineffective, it can increase the chances of home ignition. Trees are fire-suppressing windbreaks, and block the heat of a wildfire that can ignite houses. Making houses ignition-resistant is the recommended approach by today’s fire scientists and agencies.”
Chad Hanson, PhD
fire ecologist and founder of the John Muir Project
author, “The Ecological Importance of Mixed-Severity Fires: Nature’s Phoenix”:
“What hundreds of studies show is that patches of high-intensity fire creates one of the most ecologically important and biodiverse habitat in our forests: snag forest. That habitat type is comparable in terms of wildlife abundance and native biodiversity to old growth forest. It is incredibly vibrant. Fortunately, the means to protect homes from wildland fires are well understood, and fundamentally practical. The most recent science clearly shows that the only effective way to protect homes from fire is to reduce the combustibility of the home itself, by using fire-resistant roofing and siding and installing simple items like guards for rain gutters (which prevents dry needles and leaves from accumulating), as well as by creating “defensible space” through the thinning of brush and small trees within 100 feet of individual homes. If these simple measures are taken, the evidence clearly indicates that there is very little chance of homes burning, even in high-intensity fires. By focusing our attention on ensuring public safety, we can also facilitate the restoration of the natural role of wildland fire in our forest ecosystems. (…) Dead trees are not an end to a forest but are part of the renewal cycle of life and death that rejuvenates (these) ecosystems.”
Clint McKay, Indigenous (Wappo, Pomo and Wintun) fire leader,
educator, and culture bearer:
“My people cared for every part of this forest, but living with the land is different than managing it. I don’t believe we have the right to control nature. We work with it from a place of responsibility, respect, and reciprocity. This means that every time we do something in the forest, we ask, ‘What is in the best interest of animals, plants, soil, water, air, and humans?’ Humans are in that circle, but we are just one of the spokes in the wheel.”